Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 22
Fine job on opioid abuse bill, Congress. Now fund it.
Cocaine. Heroin. Crack. Methamphetamine. Sadly, each of these dangerous, illegal drugs has fueled national epidemics of addiction and overdoses over the past half-century in the United States.
But there is something especially insidious about the latest addition to this list: powerful painkillers such as OxyContin that are known together as “opioid” drugs. Unlike street drugs, these prescription drugs were once marketed as a breakthrough in treating pain, one with minimal risk of addiction. They have instead hooked legions of patients, who continue to seek out this high through doctor-shopping or buying on the street. Many misguidedly believe that opioids are safe because they are prescription drugs.
With more than 28,000 deaths nationally attributed to the abuse of opioid painkillers and street drugs, this epidemic has become a public health scourge. Thankfully, Congress has risen to the occasion with the passage of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), a compassionate piece of legislation that nonetheless still requires an important follow-through: funding the programs the bill authorizes.
President Obama signed the legislation on Friday after it had cleared both chambers of Congress with bipartisan support. It will expand prevention efforts and access to treatment programs. In addition, it calls for allowing more first responders to carry a lifesaving drug that can halt overdoses. CARA also will help launch medical studies to improve treatments.
There’s a historic component to the bill’s passage that merits noting. Chemical dependency’s toll has long been underestimated by the medical mainstream. CARA’s passage is a milestone in acknowledging these disorders as the serious, potentially deadly conditions they are.
“This is a historic moment, the first time in decades that Congress has passed comprehensive addiction legislation, and the first time Congress has ever supported long-term addiction recovery,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a chief author of the bill, in a New York Times story. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, also has been a champion of the legislation.
There has been disagreement over how to fund CARA and how much funding is required. The just-passed bill calls for $181 million to combat the epidemic but leaves Congress to appropriate dollars later this year through the traditional budget process. However, election-year politics and lawmakers’ inability to hammer out compromises during less tense times raise serious concerns about the funding becoming a reality. During the bill’s finalization this month, Democrats sought $920 million in immediate funding.
Klobuchar has also introduced legislation to require providers to use prescription drug monitoring databases before approving patients’ use of powerful painkillers. Klobuchar’s bill would help prevent a patient from seeking out new doctors to fill new painkiller prescriptions and, thus, supply a users’ habit. The bill merits swift consideration and admirably indicates lawmakers’ ongoing commitment to fight opioid abuse.
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The Free Press of Mankato, July 25
Boat detector law to prevent poisonings
We are the land of more than 10,000 lakes and we have the boats to prove it.
Minnesota ranks No. 1 in the country for most boats per capita at more than 540,000 motorboats, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. With that ownership comes responsibility. So it’s appropriate we are the first state in the nation aimed at carbon monoxide poisonings caused by boats.
A law going into effect during the next year requires boats with enclosed areas that accommodate people include carbon monoxide detectors. The deadly gas can build up from an idling motor, generator or faulty motor exhaust system.
Although carbon monoxide poisoning deaths caused by boats are not a common occurrence, it has happened three times in Minnesota over nine years, including that of 7-year-old Sophia Baechler. She died in October on Lake Minnetonka when carbon monoxide, which is colorless and odorless, leaked from a hole in the boat’s exhaust pipe.
Sophia’s parents are both doctors who tried to save her, but the poisoning hit hard and fast. She died fewer than 10 minutes after complaining of a headache and lying down. It was determined a muskrat had chewed through the exhaust pipe, creating a hole underneath a mattress area in the watercraft.
The family pushed for the detector law to prevent other avoidable loss of life.
Detection is simple and relatively inexpensive, with hard-wired marine-certified carbon monoxide detectors soon to be required on affected watercraft.
Although the law doesn’t kick in until next spring, there’s no reason for boaters to wait. Installing a detector today could mean a safer boat ride tomorrow.
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Post-Bulletin, July 25
Reading lists can help us turn page
Book lovers have long known insights are found within the pages of books.
We like to think similar insights are frequently found within newspaper pages as well.
In today’s world, some insight seems to be needed now more than ever. That’s why when a Post-Bulletin reader brought the creation of Black Lives Matter reading lists to our attention, we were intrigued.
Reading, after all, has the power to educate, spur conversations and help us understand the world around us. When we want to discover new things or be inspired, we can turn to a book.
As we looked into how reading lists were being developed to understand the violence and racial tensions unfolding in our nation, we were thrilled to find our friendly neighborhood library was ahead of us. Days after the July 6 shooting of Philando Castile, Kim Edson, Rochester Public Library’s head of reader services, was talking with co-workers and others about creating a list. “We got to use the collective wisdom of our library and community,” she said.
The list includes 12 fiction titles that provide insights into the experience of being black in America and 24 nonfiction books that provide historical context and background regarding race in this country. It also offers books for children and teens. It’s a hefty list, but well worth checking out.
Located at the end of the shelves housing fiction on the library’s first floor, we hope they will be picked through as soon as possible.
A separate list for youth has even more selections, ranging from picture books to nonfiction to challenge teen readers.
Too often we seek to read things we know will reinforce our existing views and assumptions. We look to internet posts and blogs to find like-minded views and ignore others. We forget to look back and see the context of other opinions and discover how others view the world.
We fail to understand deeper meanings in lieu of quick interpretations.
Even the phrase that has spurred book lists and much debate - Black Lives Matter - often falls victim to quick interpretations. Stemming from a social media hashtag created after the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin, it has grown into a movement for those seeking social justice. Yet, it has taken new meaning for others, who sometimes mistakenly see the word “only” where it doesn’t exist.
Black Lives Matter reading lists - and the movement it was inspired by - doesn’t mean other lives don’t matter. They simply seek to raise awareness of lives that too often have been seen to not matter or were placed apart from others.
Arguing against Black Lives Matter and for All Lives Matter often fails to see the irony. Black lives are part of that “all,” but too often in history were seen as other.
Likewise, librarians who put together Black Lives Matter reading lists aren’t advocating against other books. They will still keep the works of Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway on the shelves, as well as Donald Trump and Bill O’Reilly. The goal is to simply raise awareness of other books, and possibly challenge some static thought patterns.
It’s a worthy - and much needed - goal.
We hope reading lists like those housed at the Rochester Public Library can help raise an understanding that black lives have always mattered, even when others were too quick to disagree.
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Online:
A list of books on the Rochester Public Library’s Black Lives Matter reading list can be found at: https://bit.ly/2aeygoW
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